Revisiting Gendered Representations of Humility: An Examination of Sources from Late Medieval Italy

During the Middle Ages, gender-neutral representations of humility as a quality linked to spiritual love and voluntary service competed with representations according to gendered patterns, such as those related to the naked and dressed body in terms of its biological and social functions and its appearance. Moving from Dante's examples of humility in Purgatory, Canto X, this article focuses on representations of humility in textual and pictorial sources authored by women and men between the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries in Italy. By showing the complexity of these representations, this article revisits and reconsiders one-sided historiographical narratives according to which humility in the Middle Ages was intrinsically, persistently and negatively related to feminine suppression and servility.     

Mortars in context: An integrated study of mortars and plasters from the so-called Ginnasio in Solunto (Sicily,Italy)

This paper presents a multipronged scientific study of mortars and plasters of the so-called Ginnasio in the Hellenistic–Roman city of Solunto (Sicily, Italy). A selection of 16 well-contextualized samples was collected to represent different functions and building phases of this private house. The results show that a variety of locally available raw materials was used as aggregates and to produce binders. The diversity of raw materials’ sources and production techniques identified in this study reveals the advanced technological knowledge of the builders of Solunto, indicating a complex relationship between the settlement's cityscape and its surrounding landscape.     

Daily growth increments on fish otoliths as seasonality indicators on archaeological sites: The Tilapia from late palaeolithic Makhadma in Egypt

Daily growth increments in fish otoliths have been demonstrated for the first time on Quaternary sagittae from a late palaeolithic site in Egypt and they have allowed us to establish the season of fishing. Transverse sections of tilapia sagittae studied under light-microscope demonstrate that recrystallization during diagenesis renders the majority of the margins unreadable. The well-preserved otoliths, however, all have widely spaced outer growth lines, indicating that the fish died during a period of fast growth which coincides with the flood season. Moreover, counting the daily increments showed that late palaeolithic man captured the animals on the floodplain of the Nile after the maximum of the flood, when residual pools were present.     

Putting Severity of Punishment Back in the Deterrence Package

Studies of criminal deterrence usually show an effect of certainty of punishment but often fail to find an effect of the severity. This is a serious threat to the theoretical underpinnings of deterrence theory. Through both a survey of 39 analyses in 33 published studies and our own reanalysis of an often-used data set, we show the problem rests not with the theory but with the analysis of the theory. Finding no severity effect can be traced to "unbundling the theoretical package" when moving from the theory to the statistical models used to represent the theory.     

Embalming methods and plants in Renaissance Italy: two artificial mummies from Siena (central Italy)

Knowledge of the embalming methods used in Renaissance Italy comes not only from the literary texts of physicians and surgeons of that period, but also from artificial mummies which have been found. In 1999 two mummified bodies, dated back to the end of 15^th and beginning of the 16^th century, were recovered in a crypt of the hospital chapel of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena (central Italy). The individuals were identified as Salimbene Capacci (1433–1497), Rector of the hospital, and his wife, Margherita Sozzini (?-1511). The mummies were submitted to autopsy and paleopathological examination, which included Computed Tomography. Palaeobotanical and palynological analyses were performed on the vegetable materials and plants used to fill the body cavities. This study was carried out with a multidisciplinary perspective, that allowed us to reconstruct the embalming techniques and substances used for mummification. The results are compared with the evidences provided by other mummies and embalming handbooks of that time.     

Introduction to “Binary Binds”: Deconstructing Sex and Gender Dichotomies in Archaeological Practice

Gender archaeology has made significant strides toward deconstructing the hegemony of binary categorizations. Challenging dichotomies such as man/woman, sex/gender, and biology/culture, approaches informed by poststructuralist, feminist, and queer theories have moved beyond essentialist and universalist identity constructs to more nuanced configurations. Despite the theoretical emphasis on context, multiplicity, and fluidity, binary starting points continue to streamline the spectrum of variability that is recognized, often reproducing normative assumptions in the evidence. The contributors to this special issue confront how sex, gender, and sexuality categories condition analytical visibility, aiming to develop approaches that respond to the complexity of theory in archaeological practice. The papers push the ontological and epistemological boundaries of bodies, personhood, and archaeological possibility, challenging a priori assumptions that contain how sex, gender, and sexuality categories are constituted and related to each other. Foregrounding intersectional approaches that engage with ambiguity, variability, and difference, this special issue seeks to “de-contain” categories, assumptions, and practices from “binding” our analytical gaze toward only certain kinds of persons and knowledges, in interpretations of the past and practices in the present.     

The role of shellfish in hunter–gatherer societies during the Early Upper Palaeolithic: A view from El Cuco rockshelter,northern Spain

The role of coastal resources in the subsistence strategies of Palaeolithic human populations has only recently become an important topic in Old World archaeology. Information on the exploitation of these resources, both as foodstuffs and symbolic elements, can be used to infer the emergence of modern human behaviour as well as to track the diversification and intensification of human diet over time. The excavations carried out at El Cuco rockshelter, located in northern Spain have provided evidence for the exploitation of marine resources during the Early Upper Palaeolithic. The accumulation of Patella shells at El Cuco provides the largest accumulation and the first clear evidence of collection and consumption of molluscs during the Aurignacian on the Atlantic Façade of Europe. A deposit of ornamental shells appeared in a very homogeneous context dated to the Gravettian, suggesting that the shells belonged to the same item. The analysis of this evidence has allowed us to conclude that marine resources were systematically used at least from the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic in the region. However, a comparison with the Mesolithic shows that intensive shellfish gathering did not occur until the end of the Upper Palaeolithic. Regarding the ornaments, it is interpreted that the identified shell beads were used as social or personal status markers.     

The genera Cryptaulax and Procerithium (Procerithiidae,Caenogastropoda) in the Early Jurassic of Patagonia,Argentina

Ferrari, S.M., September 2012. The genera Cryptaulax and Procerithium (Procerithiidae, Caenogastropoda) in the Early Jurassic of Patagonia, Argentina. Alcheringa 36, 325–339. ISSN 0311-5518.

New species of Cryptaulax and Procerithium (Procerithiidae, Caenogastropoda) are reported from the Lower Jurassic (Pliensbachian–Toarcian) marine deposits of west-central Chubut province, Argentinean Patagonia. Three new species are described: Cryptaulax redelii, Procerithium (Rhabdocolpus) patagoniensis and Procerithium (Infacerithum) nodosum; and the diagnoses of Cryptaulax damboreneae Ferrari and Procerithium nulloi (Ferrari) are emended. The new fossils derive from the Mulanguiñeu and Osta Arena formations and expand the known diversity of the Procerithiidae, extending its palaeobioeographical distribution into the South American Jurassic.